What's a "clicker"? You mean a flexible cable? Minolta X-700 accepts both the dedicated electric remote shutter release and a standard flexible shutter release. Any mechanical standard flexible cable should work. I don't know about electric shutter release that are not compatible. Maybe they set the camera on B pose?

If the frame is completely black, and the film is negative, that means the frame is actually overexposed.

What's a "clicker"? You mean a flexible cable? Minolta X-700 accepts both the dedicated electric remote shutter release and a standard flexible shutter release. Any mechanical standard flexible cable should work. I don't know about electric shutter release that are not compatible. Maybe they set the camera on B pose?

If the frame is completely black, and the film is negative, that means the frame is actually overexposed.

Sorry, yes, forgive the lack of technical terminology. I used a flexible cable. The frames in question when I used the cable are completely transparent save for the lettering.

The last few frames on both rolls of film, however, are complately opaque with no lettering or anything. I can see where it has begun to be developed as it appears to have been "etched" slightly continuing from where the previous frames have been developed. But, for some reason, these last frames have not been developed.

Could this be a case of overdilution of the D-76? Or some problem in my agitation technique, or...anything else?

If you have regions of film completely black, including covering the lettering, that means that those bits of film have been exposed to daylight. Again, not a developing fault, your developer is working very nicely. It's normal to have about 7-10cm of black film leader on the end, which is the bit that is exposed when you load the camera, and there won't be frames on this. However, this black region should not cover any actual frames. Is the black region at the 00 end or the 36 end? You would expect to see it at the 00 end (due to camera loading) but never at the 36 end. What is the frame number of the last non-blackened frame?

If you have blackening at the 36 end, you're exposing it to light between unloading the roll and getting it in the tank, which would be difficult to do without fogging the whole film somewhat. If that's the case, stop doing whatever you're doing that gets light on the film

If you have blackening at the front and it covers frame 1, it means you're probably pulling out too much film while loading the camera. If you have blackening at the front but not covering frame 1, there's no problem at all and this is normal. If you were trying to shoot frames before 1, you're not winding the film on far enough when loading the camera, which means you're trying to shoot frames in the bit that was exposed to daylight during loading, so don't do that either.

Rare cause: with some (polyester-base) films, light can pipe down the base of the film and partially expose a few frames. I don't think this is your problem.

If you have blank/clear frames when you used the cable, either your cable or the camera's cable-receptacle-thing is broken.

Last edited by polyglot; 07-13-2011 at 06:35 PM. Click to view previous post history.

The strange thing is that if the cable is not working, the shutter should not fire and your film should not advance to the next frame.

If somebody loaded a canister of film from a bulk roll film for you, then with some bulk loaders, if you load the film in daylight, you get the last frame or so fogged.

How do you load your film in the reel? Maybe there was some user mistake in reel loading.

Finally, they say to load film in the camera in subdued light for a reason. The base of the film can carry light quite far inside the canister, especially if you use synthetic base film. Why you get anomalous exposure "in the middle" of the roll is still a mystery to me.

I've seen older well used cameras where the shutter button will fire the shutter and not release the film advance mechanism and also the opposite, a very gently push releases the film advance but does not trip the shutter. With the second you will end up with blank frames in the roll.

When doing bulb exposures make sure your cable is in locking mode, otherwise it will open and immediately close. If you have it locking then you'll click once to open the shutter and a second time to close it. Usually you unscrew something to lock and unlock the cable release.